Lögberg-Heimskringla - 05.12.2003, Blaðsíða 12

page 12 • Lögberg-Heimskringla « 5 December 2003
Continued from Page 11
Vestur íslendingur Visits Iceland - Martha Brooks on the INL/NA Cultural Exchange
Brian and I made our
excuses, with smiles of permis-
sion from everyone, and went
outside to further experience
that very thing. I plunged my
hand into the icy trout stream
and withdrew a shining chunk
of lava to take home to our
daughter, Kirsten. Then, as
Brian photographed the old
place, I made my way over
hillocks and snowdrifts to a
fence-line that looked as if it
had been drawn in pencil.
Behind it stood four Icelandic
horses. A chestnut brown, then
a lava-black sauntered over to
make my acquaintance. They
pressed curious noses against
my face. I sang them a song my
grandmother had taught me, in
Icelandic, Dansi dansi dúkkan
farm, after many thanks,
squeezed arms and legs and
overstuffed bodies back into the
car, and retraced the road to
Akureyri. The snow, in the
dying Northern light, had
tumed pale lavender, a colour I
have always associated with
amma Ingunn.
Dinner that evening at
Karólína Restaurant, a few
steps from Hótel KEA, was
hosted by Akureyri University
—Þorsteinn Gunnarsson,
Rector; and Sigrún Magnús-
dóttir, Director of Intemational
Services. The musicians had
arrived, Dave and Mike and Ted
accompanied by his wife, Kate;
and they all looked pink-
cheeked and somewhat rested,
having managed a little nap and
Markús Antónsson introduces Martha to the audience at the
Reykjavík Public Library
mín. I told them about Canada.
They silently presented their
good life in the valley. In the
snow by my feet, I discovered
another chunk of rock to take
home to my sister, Alice.
Jón and Gunnar, Svanhildur
and Brian and I then left the
then a long walk up and down
the streets of Akureyri. They
were blown away by every-
thing: the charming town that
resembled an alpine Christmas
card, and the generosity of the
table and our hosts. Later, right
next door, at Deiglan, I set up
Members of the Asociation of Icelandic writers for children
and youth at Gunnar’s house in Reykjvík enjoy an evening
with Martha
for my talk. Sponsored by
Akureyri University and The
Akureyri Philosophers’ Society,
this was a well-attended event.
Several people stayed, after-
wards, saying they’d be back
for the concert the following
evening.
Next day the snow was
already beginning to melt. It
would be raining in Reykjavík,
Jón Hlöðver told us; the weath-
er this time of year was always
unpredictable. That afternoon
Dave and Mike and Ted and I
had an energetic rehearsal,
releasing a few road kinks and
revelling in making music
together. By eight o’clock that
evening the place was filled
with people. Deiglan has a high
ceiling and is equipped with
tables as well as tiered seating,
but you are performing to an
intimate semi-circle. It’s lovely
— almost like having a soiree in
someone’s generous-sized liv-
ing room. And Icelandic audi-
ences are so responsive. They
lift you up, then ask for encores.
Our sound check at NASA,
the venue for our gig at the
Reykjavík Jazz Festival was the
following day at six in the
evening. Our plane was to fly
out around noon At eleven
o’clock that morning, Jón
Hlöðver sat on the runway wait-
ing for his own flight out. His
plan was to catch our evening
performance. The plane, how-
ever, didn’t Ieave the ground.
The weather was so bad in
Reykjavík that there would be
no flights out that day. I can
attest to the strong winds that
blow across the North Atlantic
with nothing in their way until
they get to Iceland. A few days
earlier Brian and I had stepped
out onto the observation deck at
Reykjavík’s Perlan, and I had
quite literally been blown off
my feet. I had never experi-
enced such a wind. Anyway,
back in Akureyri, and to make a
long story short, we got to see a
lot more of Iceland than was in
our original plan. With near to
full-house tickets already pur-
chased by eager festival-goers
to our performance down
South, and my musicians and I
fully expecting to make that
performance, Jón Hlöðver hired
a van, and we got in and headed
for Reykjavík.
I must make mention here
that travelling for four and a
half hours pressed against a
large upright bass, which is
enclosed in an even larger hard
case, is a bit like sharing inti-
mate confmes with a coffin. My
cousin Neil Bardal, an under-
taker back in Winnipeg, would
have been proud of me.
We sped through the misty
countryside, past fjords and
mountains and waterfalls and
rivers and moss-covered lava
fields, horses, sheep, and little
towns. We took brief stops and
lurched on, craning our necks to
see whatever we could, snap-
ping pictures through the win-
dows. Dave Restivo scrawled a
Mark Twain quote in my jour-
nal, “All the great men of civi-
lization are dead. I don’t feel too
well myself.”
But we were all in high
spirits in spite of slight road
nausea. We’d begun to regard
this change in plans as an unex-
pected blessing. After all, it was
so Icelandic. Jón Hlöðver
would yell back at me from the
front, “Martha! This is the home
village of your afi’s people!
This is where your great grand-
father...!” He interspersed these
pronouncements with local
ghost stories and, once, he and
the driver burst into song. That
morning he’d been on a plane
going nowhere, feaiful of the
outcome. Now he was in a van,
speeding through a landscape
full of history and personal
memory and ancestral relevance
with a bunch of jazz musicians,
one of whom was his third
cousin, and he was going to be
treated to a repeat of great jazz
that evening.
Continued on Page 13
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